


From The Ash, An Altar Raised (You Rebuilt Your Home)

by azul_ora



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Agender Character, Agender Jack Harkness, Angst, Brainwashing, Canary Wharf Battle, Computer code of questionable quality, Contrary to popular belief Owen Harper does have a heart, Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Toshiko Sato, Genderqueer Character, Genderqueer Owen Harper, Gratuitous use of line breaks, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Ianto Jones-Centric, Mental Coercion, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Pansexual Character, Sad, Sad Ianto Jones, Torchwood is hella fucking queer, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Gwen Cooper, Trans Ianto Jones, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 20:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11767497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azul_ora/pseuds/azul_ora
Summary: In which Ianto Jones has relatives, but his family was assigned to him by Torchwood.





	From The Ash, An Altar Raised (You Rebuilt Your Home)

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE READ**  
>  Warnings for explicit body dysphoria, non-explicit child abuse, non-explicit alcoholism, referenced underage drinking, explicit description of starvation, explicit description of a building fire and resulting injuries, non-explicit violence, explicit mental and emotional control/manipulation, and explicit non-consensual kissing. If any of this triggers or squicks you, please consider before reading.

Ianto Jones is born during a thunderstorm. Lightning lashes the roof of the hospital as his mother gives birth to him. She does not cry. She does not smile. His father does not come into the room.

The nurses are concerned, but say nothing, attributing the lack of care to the stress of childbirth. They weigh him and do a few tests, and proclaim him hale and healthy.

* * *

He goes home the next day. His mother places him in a cot in the corner of a small room and leaves, shutting the door.

He cries.

He cries and he cries and he cries.

The room, bland and impersonal, stares back at him in all its crumbling-plaster superiority, and does not yield.

* * *

Eventually, his mother returns with the scent of alcohol about her, a small bottle in hand, and feeds him. He grabs eagerly at it and drinks far too fast and she does not stop him. She finishes, lies him down, and leaves again.

* * *

The days follow, all the same, time’s passage marked only by the dust of the walls and the resonating silence of the flat. When thunder passes overhead, Ianto cries.

* * *

When he reaches the age of two, they do not set him in the cot anymore. His parents do not teach him to walk, so he crawls and stumbles until, pushing himself up awkwardly against the crumbling wall, he can stand.

He falls and skins his knee and there is no-one to hear him scream.

* * *

The soft orange of the walls and ceiling become Ianto’s life as he leans against the skirting board and wonders where his mother is.

* * *

By the age of four, he has just about learned how to walk without falling over, and he starts attending school. The teachers love him because he’s quiet and attentive, and for three months they don’t figure out that the reason he doesn’t speak is because he doesn’t know how. Then he’s asked to read something out loud, a couple of sentences, and he can’t. He can read it – Ianto knows what the words mean, but he has no Earthly idea how to say them.

They wonder for a while whether he’s dyspraxic, or autistic, but in the end simply decide that he hasn’t been encouraged enough to speak. Ianto obediently learns to form words at school and saves his silence for when his parents are around.

* * *

Ianto's five before he realises that the rest of the world thinks he's a girl. They're wrong, of course, but he doesn't know how to say that, how to explain that he's a son, not a daughter.

* * *

One time, when Ianto’s just passed his sixth birthday, there’s a thunderstorm while he’s in school, a big one. The whole time, no-one can get him to stop crying. He hides under a desk and wishes the world away. When it’s over and he comes out, his eyes are red and his throat is raw and they send all the kids home.

His father takes one look at Ianto and cuffs him round the jaw. Ianto retreats to his soft-orange room as fast as he can, pain and fear snarling inside him. The house stinks of whiskey that he’s now old enough to recognise as his mother’s, and he curls up on the floor feeling sick to his stomach.

* * *

Whenever Ianto comes home tired or sad or scared, his father hits him until he thinks the lesson has been taught. Ianto learns to hide the bruises and cuts and deflects curiosity and questions. His stories of clumsiness leaving injuries is given credibility by the fact that he does actually fall down the stairs once at school, when pain suddenly courses through his head and makes him sick and dizzy.

They still think he's a girl, and by now, Ianto's too busy surviving to fight another battle.

* * *

On his eight birthday, Ianto’s mother gives him a shot of vodka and his father gives him a broken arm.

* * *

As he grows into double digits, his parents grow more and more distant, not feeding him or washing his clothes. He learns the best way to sneak into the kitchen without alerting them to his presence, learns which floorboards creak and which ones hold steady.

At the age of eleven, skinny and resentful and bruised bone-deep day in, day out, he learns to pick pockets. Money isn’t something he ever sees unless he’s stolen it, and he needs to eat more than what he can sneak out of the kitchen. He never gets caught, but eventually, pickings near his flat get slimmer, and he doesn’t have the money or the time to travel further.

He grows taller and skinnier and switches from people to supermarkets, nicking whatever has the most calories. When he’s twelve, he’s lifting a couple of cans of beans and some white bread when a cashier notices him. She takes in his appearance – five foot seven of sallow, filthy skin and matted brown hair, with dark shadows under his bruised eyes and dirty, torn clothes that hang off his too-thin frame. There's no hint of femininity anywhere. Her expression melts into one of pity and she inclines her head towards the door, giving him a soft smile. He returns it, just slightly, and slips out of the door, head ducked. Later, when’s he’s crouched in the alley behind his flat scooping cold baked beans out of a can next to an overflowing dustbin, he smiles.

* * *

He goes back a couple of days later, and the same cashier is working. She gives him a look, glances around the supermarket – deserted but for the two of them – and then beckons him over. He comes, hesitantly pulling down his tattered hood as he moves towards the till. The hoodie was red, once upon a time, but now it’s a dark, dull brown from mud and blood and years of sweat never washed away. Ianto knows he smells horrible. Nonetheless, the cashier gives him another soft smile, the kind you might give to a wild animal that’s thinking about biting you. He feels like he should be offended, but kindness is foreign to him and he’s not fool enough to squander it over some paranoia.

“Hey, kiddo. You okay?” He freezes up, not knowing how to respond, and she starts slightly. “Sorry. Stupid question. Tell you what. You need to eat? Come here, when I’m on shift. I haven’t got much, but I can buy you bread and beans at least.”

He swallows a few times around the lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

“Go on, go grab yourself some food.”

“Why?” The question escapes before he can stop himself and he curses internally. _Stupid, stupid. She’s helping you, don’t drive her away for God’s sake!_

This time, her smile is a sad thing. “When I was thirteen, my dad threw me down a flight of concrete stairs. I know what pain looks like. We gotta look out for each other, cause God knows no-one else will.”

He turns, blinking back tears all of a sudden, and heads towards the back of the shop where the bread is stocked. He picks out one of the loaves that’s reduced cause it’s only in date for two more days, then moves over and picks out two cans of baked beans and sausages (somewhere in the back of his mind, his primary teacher is talking about food groups and how important protein is for muscles). He hesitates by the sweets for a minute, and then picks up the cheapest bar of chocolate on the shelf.

Moving back out to the front of the shop, he lays the items on the belt. She scans them through quickly, then takes out her own credit card and slots it into the card reader. After a few seconds, it beeps as the transaction goes through and she pulls it out.

Before he goes, she makes him promise to come back.

He does, and she tells him her name. “I’m Alicia. Alicia Bennett.”

“Ianto Jones.”

She doesn't bat an eye at the male name.

For the first time in a long time, he has hope.

* * *

Alicia works at the supermarket for four years. For those years, Ianto eats better than he ever has and at her request he throws himself into his schoolwork with all the fervour he can. Then Ianto is sixteen and she’s crying as she tells him she’s moving away.

The hope he’d been holding flickers and dies.

* * *

He keeps working hard at school though. To give up after she’s gone would feel like an insult to her, so he stays late at school and goes to every clinic and help group available until he’s getting As in all his classes. When he’s not at school, he works part-time jobs, whatever retail work is going. He barely goes home at all, sleeps in the back rooms at work, dozes in doorways on dark streets, naps at school during lunchtime and break.

He hates his body, hates the way his chest swells and his hips widen while his waist stays pinched tight.

* * *

He gets caught stealing for the first and only time just as he’s passing seventeen. He spends a night in the cells and in the morning they fine him. The fine takes everything he has from that week’s wages. Retail doesn’t pay much.

After that he’s too nervous to try and steal anymore. He eats what he can buy and nothing more. When he takes his shirt off, every rib is clearly visible through his skin, and all he can think is,  _at least I don't look like a girl anymore_.

* * *

He leaves high school with four A-levels. When he receives his results, he looks at them for a long time, and then hugs them to his chest. _Thank you, Alicia Bennett_. His grades are good, some of the best in the country, and he manages to get into his first choice of university: an information science course at Cambridge. He moves into a tiny flat with five other people who’re also going. He shares a room with two girls who’re both doing some kind of engineering course. They get on well enough when he talks to them, but they’re rarely in at the same time.

They paint the walls when they move in. One of the girls asks Ianto if he has a colour preference. He asks only that it not be orange.

They paint the walls light blue and he’s never been happier.

* * *

He gets a job in a bookstore, organising and shelving, and spends three years simply _learning_. Putting things in order has always appealed to Ianto, and he doesn’t mind the hours it takes to do so.

His flatmates call him Ianto and use 'he' and 'him' when talking about him. They don't know that his university ID is marked with a tiny F.

And then he’s finished and he has a First in Information Science. Once again, when he receives his degree, he hugs it tight and thanks Alicia.

* * *

He gets a call two weeks after he graduates, asking him if he’d like to come in for an interview for an organisation called Torchwood. He accepts, and two days later he gets the bus back into London. The interview is brief and sharp, but Ianto finds himself hoping he impressed them: the wage that’s offered is more money than he’s ever seen in his life and the work described is exactly what he enjoys: filing, sorting, putting things in their place.

The day after the interview, they call him and ask him to come in again. They ask if he wants the job, and when he says yes, they hand him an NDA half a finger thick and tell him to read it, then sign at the end if he still wants the job.

Ianto spends half an hour carefully reading the whole thing. He almost laughs when the document mentions ‘no disclosure, full or partial, to any family members, including (but not limited to) parents, children, siblings, cousins, aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews, partners or spouses’. Ianto’s family is an abusive father, a drunk mother, an aunt with early onset Alzheimer’s who’s a permanent resident at a mental hospital in Glasgow and a cousin he’s never met. A cashier in a supermarket who bought him bread and sweets for four years is more family than his family.

Ianto signs.

* * *

He starts at Torchwood London a week later, and gets a tiny flat in the outskirts of the city. He can’t afford a car, and there aren’t any subway stations or bus stops near his flat, so he dresses casual in the mornings and jogs the seven miles to the Tower. He showers there and then changes into work clothes before heading down to the Archives. At first, the stuff he handles is nothing but sealed metal boxes. Even his lengthy NDA apparently doesn’t cover what’s inside those boxes. He contents himself with placing them where they’re meant to go and entering them into the system. The Archives are huge, and Ianto delights in learning every nook and cranny. He earns a few brownie points with one of the senior staff when he helps track down several crates of… something… that have been misfiled. His promotion comes with another NDA, and then he occasionally packs stuff into the crates as well as just filing them. Most of it’s metallic, stuff Ianto can’t make heads or tails of from the brief look he gets at it. Most of the time, he doesn’t wonder. Work is just work, and Ianto cares nothing for monsters or aliens or whatever it is that Torchwood combats. He’s seen enough of the world to know humans are the thing one really has to fear.

Thanks to Torchwood's political clout, however, he manages to get his legal gender changed to male. The day the paperwork comes through, he clutches it to his (binder-flat) chest and weeps.

A few weeks later, he spends his saved-up salary on a cosmetic double mastectomy. He throws away his old binders and revels in the way that his clothes no longer pinch and hang in uncomfortable ways, the way the narrowness of his waist and the width of his hips are hidden by his clothes and written off as coincidence in face of his flat chest and the letter M on his Torchwood ID pass.

* * *

When there are thunderstorms, he takes the day off and hides in his flat.

* * *

He keeps himself to himself at work, keeps his head down and does as he’s told. He’s promoted three more times, each one with a longer NDA. He gets a little sick of reading non-disclosure agreements and he doesn’t care much for the people now working under him. He just wants to learn the Archives, so he does: he works long hours into the night and emerges from the subterranean corridors only to make himself coffee. Most of the staff get their food and drink from one of the stalls on the ground floor, where all the innocuous stuff that doesn’t require a security clearance is kept. Ianto prefers to make his own. He finds a quiet kind of solace in moving around the small, empty employee kitchen, working the coffee machine.

* * *

One day, he comes into the kitchen to find a woman standing in front of the coffee machine, staring at it like it holds the meaning of life. She looks up as he comes in and smiles ruefully. “Hey. Don’t suppose you know how to work this thing? I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

He smiles and moves over to the counter. “Of course. What would you like?”

“Whatever’s got a caffeine kick. I could use the energy.”

“Long night?” he asks, setting a pot on to brew.

“Yeah. Working late. I’m in Human Resources. You?”

“Archiving.” He prepares a couple of shots of espresso and turns around to see her looking at him with a slightly surprised expression. “Sorry, did I say something?”

She visibly shakes herself, before replying, “No, it’s just… well, all the other departments think the Archivists are a bit weird. You voluntarily spend all your time wondering around in the dark at everyone’s beck and call.”

He shrugs and takes out the carafe. “I like organising things.” He pours coffee into two mugs, adds three shots of espresso and to some creamer to hers and holds out the mug. “Your coffee.”

She takes a sip, then looks at him with a startled smile. “This is hands-down the best coffee I’ve ever had.”

He flushes slightly, and studies the floor intently. “Thanks.”

“I’m Lisa Hallett.”

“Ianto Jones.”

* * *

They meet a few more times, Ianto makes coffee, and then Lisa asks him out on a date. For lack of anything better to do, Ianto accepts. They see each other for a couple of months before she ends it: it’s too amicable to be called a breakup. Lisa admits she thinks she’s lesbian, and Ianto doesn’t much mind. She was nice, but neither of them ever made it into anything serious, never progressed beyond chaste kisses. They decide to stay friends, and Ianto finds that suddenly he trusts her more than he ever has anyone. They hang out on weekends when they’re not working, and when Lisa takes Ianto to a gay bar with her she doesn’t miss the way his eyes linger on a man in a business suit by the bar.

“I don’t think I’m straight, Lisa,” he confesses later. “But I don’t know enough about this to really say what I am.” Admitting his lack of knowledge is shameful, but any time the subject’s come up, the twisting in his gut has forced him away. _Internalised homophobia_ , he thinks, and curses his parents. _There’s nothing wrong with being queer_ , he thinks firmly.

“Well, would you say you’re just attracted to men?”

He shakes his head, slowly. “No. I do definitely like women too. To be honest, I don’t think I mind much.”

She pauses, thinking. “Well, there’s bisexual, which is attraction to men and women. There’s polysexual, which is attraction to multiple genders. And there’s pansexual, which is attraction to people regardless of their gender.”

“That,” he says. “The last one. Pansexual.” Something in him relaxes. There is a word. There is a term. He _fits_ somewhere. “That’s me.”

He smiles, and she does too.

* * *

He starts wearing suits to work: black three-pieces with white shirts and dark block-coloured ties. He moves from his small flat into a two-bedroom place with Lisa. When she brings girls home every now and again, Ianto doesn’t mind. He can’t bring himself to go that far with anyone though, can’t trust his heart to another person when it’s only just begun to heal.

Despite that, he finds that all of a sudden, he’s completely, suddenly happy. He has friends. He has a nice flat with walls in soft pastel green. He has clothes that fit and look smart and are washed after a few wears. He has money slowly building in his bank account: his wages are high now, increased with promotion, and he spends little beyond rent, utilities and food. Gifts for Lisa and occasional new clothes take up but a little of his excess, so most is simply saved.

Everything is as perfect as it’s ever been.

Then comes the Battle of Canary Wharf, and rips his life apart.

* * *

He’s in the Archives when the alarms start blaring, emergency lights painting the corridors in red. Without even thinking, he leaves what he’s doing and heads down to Level Nine. At the end of the corridor three there’s a door that shouldn’t be there. He’s checked the building’s plans, and the tiny, heavily-reinforced room isn’t on them.

He locks himself in, sinks to his knees in a corner and hopes.

When he forges his way out, five hours later, the building is burning. He climbs out slowly, lungs full of the taste of dust and ash. As he passes Level Three the fire surges forward and he screams as his left arm is engulfed. When he stumbles back and upwards, his shirt is fused to his skin, the scent of burning flesh in the air.

He reaches the ground floor and it’s like stepping into Hell.

Bodies lie strewn about, limbs severed and burned, split and destroyed. Blood stains the floor, where fallen Cybermen are sparking. Sprays of electricity light the room, fireworks displays played out in miniature. A shower of sparks falls across his face and Ianto’s sobbing, he can’t _breathe_ -

A hand grabs his shoulder, cold and hard, and the whirring of metal fills his ears. Something hard collides with the side of Ianto’s head and fire fades to black.

* * *

**rebooting…**

**rebooting…**

**rebooting…**

**reboot complete**

“What’s going on?”

**unit_designation: ianto_jones**

**protocol_file: primary_protocol**

**ianto_jones**

**doTask “love” FOR lisa_hallett**

**ianto_jones**

**doTask all FOR lisa_hallett**

**IF**

**status(primary_protocol)=“disobeyed”**

**THEN**

**terminateUnit(ianto_jones)**

“Lisa? Lisa, is that you?”

“Protocol transfers are complete.”

“Lisa, what’s this thing in my head?”

“You will make an excellent sleeper unit.”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh my God, Lisa, LET ME GO!”

**unit_designation: ianto_jones**

**file_type: memory_files**

**deleting…**

**deleting…**

**deleting…**

**deletion complete**

“Lisa, what are you doing to me? Oh, God, _someone HELP ME!_ ”

**rebootUnit(ianto_jones)**

“Lisa!”

**rebooting…**

“Please, just stop!”

**rebooting…**

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

**rebooting…**

“PLEASE _HELP ME!_ ”

**reboot complete**

“Unit_designation: lisa_hallett?”

“Affirmative.”

“Awaiting commands.”

* * *

There is something Ianto should remember. There is something missing. He pulls Lisa’s body from the wreckage and there is a black space in his brain, and he cannot remember how he got from the saferoom in the Archives to here, cannot recall when he first pressed his hands to searing metal and began to pull Lisa from the flames. All that’s there is a burning conviction.

_I have to save her._

**_unit_desig_ **

Ianto blinks, and makes for the stairs. The skin of his hands bubbles and burns.

* * *

He reaches the street, and it is raining fire. Smoke fills the air and burning rubble and ash is floating down. There is no-one there, the streets are deserted and they have been _deserted_ -

It is surprisingly easy to find a truck that had been delivering supplies when the attack came. It is almost fully unloaded: a few crates sit in the back corner but Ianto ignores them in favour of lifting Lisa in, setting her against the wall.

“Lisa? Lisa, what do you need?”

Knowledge flashes through his mind, suddenly, sharp and crisp and clear, images of metal and monitors and

**_nation: iant_ **

he is on his feet, running back into a burning building and he does not think to question why.

* * *

It takes five more hours for UNIT to finally arrive and by then Ianto is long gone. The van is parked in an abandoned warehouse by the Thames and Lisa directs him, tells him how to turn the conversion unit into a life support machine.

His hands are red and bloodied, burnt through. The nerves are fried and they don't hurt anymore. Ianto can't feel anything in his fingers, can barely move the muscles. His left arm is a cacophony of pain and silence, nerves fluttering and flaring only to fade away.

He listens. He obeys.

* * *

Much later, he goes to a hospital. They tell him that the nerve damage done to his hands is irreversible, that he will never regain feeling anywhere past his wrists, and that feeling in his left arm will be severely limited. They give him exercises to do to regain his control over the muscles, and he slowly, painstakingly improves.

* * *

“Take me to Cardiff. Get me into Torchwood Three.”

**_o-jones_ **

“Lisa, I can’t. They’ll notice you, and they’ll hurt you.”

**rebootUnit(ianto_jones)**

“You’ll keep me safe.”

**rebooting…**

“Lisa, I _can’t_.”

**rebooting…**

**_protocol_fi_ **

**rebooting…**

“Lisa?!”

**reboot complete**

“Unit_designation: lisa_hallett?”

“Affirmative.”

“Awaiting commands.”

“Covertly enter Torchwood Three. Install me there.”

“Affirmative.”

“Wipe memories of this encounter, then return to sleeper mode.”

“Affirmative.”

**deleting…**

**_le: primary_pro_ **

**deleting…**

“Commencing task. Once memories are deleted, I will return to sleeper mode.”

**deleting…**

**_tocol_ **

**deletion complete**

“Lisa? We’ve got to go Cardiff. I can get into Torchwood Three, I can trick them into hiring me. They’ll have power and tech. I can save you.”

* * *

Torchwood Three is nice. They don't mind that Ianto's small and quiet and queer. Jack is hardly subtle about their sexuality, and when Tosh introduces herself for the first time, she explains that her pronouns depend on the day. Ianto tells Gwen in halting words about his experience of transition from female to male, and in return, she confides her own transition, saving up for months on end to get surgery, and weekly estrogen injections. In return, Ianto shares stories of testosterone and the bizarre feeling of his voice breaking at twenty-two.

It fills Ianto's heart, the Hub and its inhabitants, but he can't help but feel like something's broken deep inside.

* * *

“Internal power drain.”

Ianto’s heart stops.

**_ianto_jones_ **

He speaks automatically, weaving a lie about broken parts in the generator and his attempts to fix it. Jack’s face is questioning, but they trust him.

For now.

* * *

He presses a kiss to her lips and his head feels like it’s on fire.

**_doTask “love” FOR lisa_hallett_ **

“I love you. I promise I won't let them hurt you."

_**ianto_jones** _

"Ianto?"

"I'll be right back, soon as I can."

He drags away Tanizaki's body. His arms move of their own accord, pulling the sheet over the body. He tries to stop and finds he cannot.

_**doTask all FOR lisa_hallett** _

* * *

The muzzle of a gun to the side of his head.

"If she's still alive, you execute her!"

Words are leaving Ianto's lips, biting at Jack (and the way their eyes harden makes Ianto's heart break) but they are not his words and he cannot stop. He fights his way back into control and picks up the gun.

_**IF** _

His footsteps are loud in the silent Hub and he goes down, down to where she is.

A corpse. A body on the floor, and just for a second, nothing responds. His muscles short out: he drops to the floor and cannot feel the pain of his knees hitting hard concrete.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a thought spirals out.

_if she's dead why do I still feel like she's playing me, like I'm a puppet dancing on her strings_

Ianto cries and his screams echo like thunder.

And then she's there. Lisa, in a stolen body, stolen words and a stolen life. Her tongue drips with lies and Ianto levels the gun.

_**status(primary_protocol)="disobeyed"** _

They are different lips, but she still kisses the same, like she's claiming him, like if he lets her have her way he will be consumed.

_**THEN** _

"I'm sorry. I've got to. I've got to." Jack's words, playing on Ianto's lips. Ianto recalls the way Jack's eyes went cold, like they'd just found out the world was made of razors, like the silvery glint of moonlight was reflected in broken glass and blood.

_**terminateUnit(ianto_jones)** _

Four guns bark. Lisa stumbles back, blood on her clothes and her face and her lips, and Ianto drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

* * *

"-Jesus Christ, Owen, what's happening to him?!"

"He's seizing, Gwen. Quick, help me get him upstai-"

* * *

"-the fuck is that in his head, Owen?!"

"It's cyberman tech, Jack, mind-control tech, the fucking cyberman was controlling him the whole time."

"Can you get it out?"

"I..."

" _Can you save him?!_ "

"I can't promise anything, Tosh."

"Please, Owen, you have to try."

"Jack..."

"Ianto, hey, hey, go to sleep. It's gonna be okay. Owen, why isn't he under?"

"He should be. Tosh, up the sedatives."

"M'sorry, Jack. Tried t'stop... sh'wouldn't le'me..."

"It's okay, Ianto, you've got nothing to apologise for."

"M so sorry."

"Ianto..."

"M sorry..."

* * *

Ianto wakes up.

* * *

"What happened?"

Owen takes a deep breath. "When we killed the cyberman, that thing in your head short-circuited. You started seizing. We got you up here and sedated and x-rayed you. The tech had been projecting a false image before that had been hiding it, but that died when the cyberman did, so I could see it. I opened up your head and got it out. You're damn lucky it was only superficially attached to your nerves. Even so, you were in operation for four hours."

Ianto blinks. Takes a long, shaky breath and lets it go. "I'm free?"

Owen's voice is tired. "Yeah, teaboy. You're free."

Jack comes into Ianto's field of view, and Ianto closes his eyes against the shame. He focuses on the cold autopsy table beneath him, the feel of his blood-soaked shirt against his skin, the eternal numbness of his hands.

"Ianto."

"Sir. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Tears well in his eyes and he raises one sluggish hand.

"Look at me, Ianto."

He opens his eyes.

"It wasn't your fault. You got that?"

Ianto nods, just slightly. He doesn't believe it at all.

* * *

A few hours later, he's showered and dressed in clean clothes (a loose hoodie of Tosh's and a pair of jeans that Owen had stashed away for when xe changed out of xyr medical scrubs). He's sitting in the conference room. Tosh sits to his left, holding his hand under the table, a silent, warm presence. The numbness in hands persists, but Tosh's shoulder presses against his - that, at least he can feel. Gwen sits the other side of Tosh. Owen is to Ianto's right, and Jack beyond xem.

Pizza boxes lie open on the table, but no-one is eating. The pity is practically cloying in the air, and Ianto just wants to sleep.

Eventually, Owen clears xyr throat. "I don't want to ask this, but medical debrief and all..."

Ianto plasters on his best smile. "Go ahead."

"Do you know how long that thing was in your head for?"

"Yes. The deleted memories have come back now. It was, uh, installed-" Gwen winces, "-during the Battle of Canary Wharf."

Jack says something under their breath that, despite the fact that Ianto doesn't recognise the language, is clearly a swearword. Owen looks like xe wants to be sick.

Ianto tries to keep his smile in place, focuses on the feel of Tosh's shoulder against his own. "So, a little over two years."

After a few more minutes, Jack, Owen and Gwen each awkwardly excuse themselves. Ianto clears his throat a couple of times and asks in a scratchy voice, "Pronouns?"

"He/him, why?"

"So I know what to use when I write up the mission report."

Tosh turns to Ianto, sadness written deep into his face. He says suddenly, "I know that smile. I've done it a million times."

"Oh?"

"That's the smile you use to convince everyone you're okay when on the inside you're screaming."

"How do you know-"

"Because that's the smile you give every time a thunderstorm passes overhead." Tosh pauses, considering his words. "You're not the only one who's been manipulated into doing unspeakable things," and suddenly it clicks into place,  _Tosh's mother_. "I'm not trying to say that what I went through was as bad as what you did, 'cause it wasn't, but I just want you to know that if... if you need someone to talk to, someone who understands, even a little, I will be here. For as long as you need me."

Ianto swallows a few times around the lump in his throat. "It wasn't like... I wasn't like a robot. She didn't micromanage me. She'd tell me to do something and I would. If it was something easy, something I wouldn't question, she could just say it, and I would do it. I felt... compelled, I suppose, to obey her." He lets out a hollow laugh. "Owen found my protocol files.  ** _ianto_jones doTask "love" FOR lisa_hallett_** and  ** _ianto_jones doTask all FOR lisa_hallett_** , that was my primary protocol, and I obeyed it to the letter. I loved her! I would've done anything for her! Well, almost anything." He takes a deep breath. "If it was a big order, one I was likely to fight, she would... uh... reboot me." Tosh's breath stutters, but to his credit he doesn't flinch. "She'd set it up so I'd believe I'd through of the command myself, then wipe my memory and return me to sleeper mode."

Tosh's hand is warm as he places it on Ianto's cheek, an attempt at comfort. "It's over now. You're free."

"Yeah, I'm free." His voice is hollow.

They are both silent for a few moments.

"Sometimes, I don't believe I'm out of prison," Tosh says suddenly. "Sometimes I think this is all a dream and I'm gonna wake up in an orange jumpsuit in a two-by-six cell. But Jack got me out. On days like that, they'll sit with me for hours if I need it, 'till I can believe this is real. They'd do the same for you in a heartbeat." He swallows. "My point is... we're all hurt. We've all lost people. We've all lost ourselves. But we keep each other. You've saved me before, Ianto, cause when nothing is working and I feel like the walls are closing in and I'm never going to see daylight again, you're there with a mug of coffee and a biscuit and a few kind words, and you let me know it's going to be okay." A tear is running down Ianto's cheek and he doesn't wipe it away. "And it shames me to say that I didn't notice for so long that you were flaking apart, too busy letting you pull me out the shadows to notice that they made their new home under your eyes. But we're gonna help you, Ianto. Cause, yeah, we've lost people, and yeah, Owen talks too loud like xe just needs someone to listen and Gwen falls in love like she's never been loved back and Jack keeps looking for their Doctor cause they're so desperate to feel fixed and I need to pinch myself to believe that this is real but we are not  _broken_ , Ianto, do you get that, we are damaged and we're screwed up but we are not fucking broken. We're family. And real family don't leave each other behind."

Ianto's voice cracks. "You know nothing about me. The whole time, ever since you met me, I was just a puppet."

"Then we'll start from the beginning." He holds out a hand. "I'm Toshiko Sato, genderfluid. Current pronouns are he/him. It's good to meet you."

He takes the outstretched hand, hesitantly, and he feels it not on his skin but in his heart. "Nice to meet you, Toshiko Sato. I'm Ianto Jones."

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own 'em - if I did, it'd be a lot more diverse.  
> Some dialogue has been lifted directly from 'Cyberwoman' and I do not own this dialogue.  
> In case anyone's confused about the different pronouns used in this fic:  
> Jack is agender and uses they/them. Tosh is genderfluid uses either she/her or he/him depending on the day, which is why Ianto enquires about Tosh's pronouns. Owen is agender and uses xe/xyr. Ianto is transmale and uses he/him. Gwen is transfemale uses she/her.  
> The title is lyrics from the song _[Angel Lust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uzuRyJcpKg)_ by Area 11.  
>  This fic has [art](http://azul-ora.tumblr.com/post/163408148298/cyber-done-by-azul-ora-in-clip-studio-paint), courtesy of myself.


End file.
